Atopic Dermatitis – Treatment Options

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Atopic dermatitis can be a painful condition but it is one that is often confused with psoriasis, when in fact the two are different skin rashes entirely. The treatment options for dermatitis and psoriasis are different and it is important to know the facts about the two different skin disorders if you are to know how to avoid causing a dermatitis flare-up from an allergen. You have to know the facts if you are going to get the right treatment.

Atopic dermatitis is also known as skin eczema and is a skin disease that is often found running in families. If your parents have an allergy to a certain substance, then you are highly likely to have that same allergy. Take for example poison ivy as an allergen to which many people are allergic. If you are allergic to poison ivy and it causes a skin rash, then your children run the risk of being allergic to poison ivy as well. The dermatitis allergy itself is not contagious even though the pustules of fluid from the poison ivy would be allergy producing for someone else who is allergic to poison ivy.

If you want to know what you are allergic to, then a doctor can do an allergy test. This test will look for different allergens. It begins with your skin. The doctor will perform skin patch testing or scratch testing. He or she will apply an allergen to a specific area and wait to see if skin irritation occurs. If it does, then it means that you are allergic to that particular allergen. This process can take quite a while to produce definitive results, due to the sheer volume of potential allergens that we come into contact with on a daily basis.

If you have been diagnosed with atopic dermatitis it does not have to mean the end of the world for you. It is a skin disease that can be controlled with medication, diet and learning to avoid certain triggers that set off your allergies. The medications are easy to apply and in a worse case scenario, you may have to undergo ultraviolet therapy to clear your skin. You may also have to take an oral histamine to help control the symptoms and stop the allergy in its tracks.